Sony Corporation Research and Development

Sony Corporation explore and festeringSony Corporation is an international federation that was established in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, the social clubs headquarter is located in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The telephoner was originally called Tokyo Telecommunication Engineering Corp which started with as little as $1500. Ibuka and Morita decided to operate the firm internationally in the 1950s and changed the pick out to Sony since the name Tokyo Telecommunication Engineering Corp was already taken at the time. The first product Sony released onto the market place was a transistor radio in 1955 which was the first one in Japan at the time some other key products developed by Sony are the Headset stereo walkman in 1979, bunch up Disc Discman in 1984 and Mini Disc system which was launched in 1992. Today Sony offers a wide range of electronic equipments such as home and movable audio system, digital cameras, DVD players, televisions, video game console, supple phones and both home and portable computers. The company has become extremely successful today tally to its consolidated financial results, its sales and operating(a) revenue were 78.88 billion US dollars in 2009. So just what makes the company so successful despite operating in such a competitive industry and starting with so little fund? To answer this question we will examine the organisation, management and look for and developments of the company as well as any strategic alliances and collaborations with other firms.Before we look at the look and developments carried out by Sony Corporations, I would equivalent to quickly mention the recent trend of RD activities in the UK as well as the global. consort to the DIUS review, the 850 largest corporate in the UK spent over 21.6 billion on RD activities in 2007, which was an increase of 7% compared to the previous year, 2006. Globally, 1,400 of the worlds most active companies invested over 274 billion in 2007, which increased by 9.5% from the previous year. These data suggest that Research and development becomes more and more popular to companies all over the world as companies starting to understand the importance of RD activitiesRD is vital to the survival of a company due to the increasing competition from rivals in all kind of industries in the world. Companies need to constantly improve the design and performance of its products in nightclub to balk ahead of its competition. By having better products with better design, performances and more importantly products that suits consumers taste than rivals, a company can gain a larger portion of the market shares, therefore making more profits.Research and development activities can usually be separated into two main categories, they are internal RD and non-internal RD. Internal research and development is basically any RD activities that are carried out or managed by the company itself. On the other hand, non-internal research and development are RD activitie s that arent operated by the company itself, strategic alliances and collaboration with other companies is a good example. Sony Corporation employs both internal and non-internal RD activities which we will be discussing shortlyThe below diagram demonstrates the amount of specie spent in RD by Sony Corporation from 1998 to 2007. As we can see from the diagram, RD expenditure has increased gradually from 375314 billion yens to 514483 billion yens from 1998 to 2003. And from 2003 to 2007, the amount on bullion invested in RD fluctuates between 514483 billion yens to 543937 billion yens. Sony Corporation spent around from 5.8% to 7.8% of their sales and operating revenues on RD during this period of time.So just what did Sony Corporations RD focuses on? According to the companys fact book that was published in 2006 on its website, it stated that the companys RD will be focusing on four main areas, they arePlatforms for home and mobile electronicsSemiconductor technologiesDevices tech nologies andSoftware technologiesTo improve the platforms for home and mobile electronics, Sony focuses on developing products that support the high definition content. In semiconductor technologies, Sony focuses on developing electronic applications for Cell, which is a very powerful microprocessor.In devices technologies, Sony is focusing on developing Blu-ray disc technologies which is intentional to enhance High Definition vision to the next level. Finally for packet technology, Sony focuses on developing software that helps consumers to operate electronic products in a more user friendly way. Other software focuses are codecs and Digital Rights Managemnet (DRM) which is designed to protect products such as music, video and ebooks.Sony Corporation has a total of three developments group and four research centres around the world. There 3 groups and 4 centres are under Sonys direct control, they areTechnology Development Group this department involves in developing common elem ent technologies and newly launched products in order to expand the business.Display Device development Group this department involves in developing new display for the next generation of productsCore Technology Development Group this department involves in developing new devices for the next generation of productsMaterials Laboratories this department involves in finding new advanced materials to produce more greatest products which in turn increases the competiveness of the company.Information Technologies Laboratories this department focuses on researching in new information in order to produce products that set apart from rivalrys products6)A-cubed Research core group this department involves in research of image signal processing technologiesSony Computer Science Laboratories The seven departments we have just looked at is operated by Sony Corporative Headquarter directly, which means they are in-house RD, we will next look at the non-internal RD activities carried out b y Sony, its strategic alliances and collaborations with other major companysSony has a large number of diverse strategy alliances and collaborations with different companies. In this essay, it will be focusing on two of the most well known examples, they are Sony Ericsson and Sandisk. Sony Ericsson was established in October 2001, it was a joint infer of Sony